Although Costa Rica has over 800 species of birds at certain times of the year, it’s good to see some old favorites. They are like old friends. I pointed out a robin to my kids. We stopped and slowly crept closer in hopes of getting a look at the rare creature. The big orange breasted bird kept hopping just far enough ahead of us to stay distant. I told Coco that’s how we know it’s spring here.

Her spring is different. Instead of melting snow, she feels the Trade Winds begin in December. And the rain stops. There is the same feeling of relief as we know we’ll be getting a break from the deluge of rain and rain. It compares nothing to trudging through the winter months of snow, but she can relate a little bit.

These babies were nesting out on my mother’s patio. A sure sign spring and summer are here. The same thing happens in Costa Rica. We have nesting birds right outside our window at home. The same things seem to happen everywhere: life, death, happiness, sorrow. It’s just the packaging is different from a red robin’s breast to the color or our skin to the foods we eat. We all still eat, love, give life, and screw it up and bounce back again.

After holding Addison up to the nest, we hid in the living room so the mother could return. I couldn’t tell exactly what kind of bird the mother was, but the babies chirped and held open their beaks again, waiting for life to come - like it always does.

Addison got a clean bill of health at his doctor’s office, sort of. He’s tall, but skinny - for his age group in the “Downs” category. There’s that pesky little cough, but he’s visibly stronger and more bubbly than ever. I have about five doctors I rotate around to depending on the current physical or mental need. This doctor is a wonderful woman that ushered Addy through the major surgery on this third day of life on his digestive track. She then was the pediatrician in charge of getting him off all those tubes and beeping machines, and home.

Since I needed those letters for the airline to get Addison’s food on board, I did the old “kill the bird with one stone” trick. He also needed a yearly check-up. It’s kind of fun to watch someone’s face who hasn’t seen a child in awhile.

“He’s so big!” She couldn’t get over his size.

I admit. I beamed a bit. Then came that question, the BIG one: Is he walking yet? Most Downs kids at this age are. Addison got really clinging and grasped any part of me he could while she looked down his ear tubes and throat. She has this really distinctive voice like Susan Saint James, and I think he remembered all those needles she stuck in him a few years ago.

“You can walk Addison,” she said to him as we finished the exam. He pointed to the life-size Bob the Builder in her office. I set him on the floor. “He just doesn’t want to,” she continued.

And in some ways, I believe this is true. From the time Addison was born, he has been completely content with whatever spot he was in. Instead of running over (or scooting in this case) to destroy my plants, he’d be entirely content with playing with his toes or the fringe on the carpet. Addison is an observer; he likes to watch. Yet, with any quality we posses there is probably some adjusting we all need to do to stay in balance.

I didn’t defend how much I was working with Addison. The mounds and mounds of times we walk back and forth in the living room with the baby stroller loaded with rice and rocks. I just took it in. There’s a saying that says something like a wise man can hear wisdom from any fool. I’m not saying my doctor is a fool by any means, no what I have learned is sometimes just the right message I need to hear can come from anywhere. If I get all “uppity” and “know-it-all,” I could miss a few good words that could change my life or just simply lift my spirit.

When I told the nanny the news, it was like igniting a fire under her. By the end of the day, Addison was scaling the stools and walls with almost 100% more frequency than before. News flashes from the doctors always juice the nannies into action. Sometimes we all need that extra shot of confidence and support because after two and on-half years with this guy, we can easily slip into a comfortable routine that isn’t challenging anymore. The trick is not being a fool by not listening and hearing the wisdom even fools can bring.

One of my nannies is sick. Her glands, she tells me, are as big as the pots on her stove. After three days of the feeling horrible, the other nannies told her it was time to go and get an injection. A large part of the social system health care system is rooted in those injections. Everyone gets an injection. Swollen glands? Get a shot. Bad knee? Another shot. Headache? Stomach ache? Go to a clinic; wait in line; and have a needle stuck in the backside. You’re done. The funny thing is, in a few hours or maybe a day, people feel better. What are in those shots? I have no idea. And every time I ask the afflicted individual, they don’t know either.

The nanny finally hauled herself up a steep 1/2 mile hill and trudged to the clinic to get her injection. I talked to her last night over the phone, and she still sounded like she had little bags of sour cream lodged in her throat. This nanny hates to take pills. But there she is, loaded with pastillas and more injections. We’re hoping she’ll be back tomorrow.

I myself have become incredibly proficient with a needle. When my now-deceased mother-in-law moved in with us (oh what a book this will be!), a full-time nurse was out of the question when she fell and broke her hip six months after arriving. So, the doctor showed me how to shoot Gladys in the stomach. It takes a good pinch of the skin, and after a few days, she said she couldn’t even feel it when I shot her up.

In Costa Rica, you can go to a pharmacy and get just about any drug you want if you can pronounce the name. Of course you can’t get morphine or valium without a prescription, but more or less, most drugs you want are behind the thousands of pharmacies around almost every corner in every town. There’s a lot of benefit in this. For example, I asked the vet for an anti-venom in case of snake bites or toad poisoning for my dogs. I kept it on hand. And wouldn’t you know it? One night I went out to the patio where my dogs were hanging out and one of them was foaming at the mouth. The first sign of poisoning. My hands were shaking as I read the instructions and measured out that tiny little millimeter tube. I got a hold of the dogs back leg muscle and with one swift move (you’ve got to be swift with a foaming dog at hand), I had the medicine in and out. Since she was young, she survived. If I had taken her to the vet, she would have died.

I’ve gotten some clues as to what’s in those shots. One night at the emergency room, Addison got a shot of steroids because he wasn’t breathing. I could not believe the difference. In one day, he turned around 100%. I can see why people clammer to the clinics for those shots because people do feel better, for awhile. I think the clinics understand that when they have an individual in their hands, there’s a good chance the person won’t be able to afford or be willing to take the pills once they walk out the door. At least with a shot of steroids, quartisone, antibiotics, and even vitamin B, they’ve injected a chance the patient will at least have one good dose of the medicine.

It’s not something to take lightly.* Too many shots of a good thing can become a bad thing. Steroids will quit working after awhile. Anyone who’s done research about them will know that. But who’s got Internet in the campo? I’m not scared of a needle and actually prefer to treat as much as I can at home. And Costa Ricans do often avoid the pills. Many still believe in teas to relieve nervousness, and over the years, I’ve learned a lot about boiling certain kinds of leaves for stomach aches. This hole health thing is a guessing game. Overall the doctors really care about their patients here. It seems they have remained closer to the idea that they’re job is to help people and serve as a conduit for healing. I just received a phone number for a doctor that will make house calls in the middle of the night. Imagine that. What a shot of medicine that is!

*Now I do not keep a stash of drugs on hand. The only thing I have right now is an old dried up needle of tooth whitener. I don’t keep anything on hand unless I’ve seen it done by a professional first.

Amidst even quite times, there’s always something there to remind me of how quickly brightness can turn a little dark. I promised an evening out with the kids. My daughter was giddy with joy. Addison only knew he was going to get in the car - one of his most favorite things in the world. After packing up our gear and managing not to get too wet as we loaded and unloaded our group into the shopping center, we walked around and even had the delight of meeting some good friends.

Coco’s “buy-me-something” mode was subdued, and she was thrilled with a notebook she got to pick out. We walked past bored vendors hanging around outside their store as business was slow. All the female clerks know Addison since he comes to this mall about two or three times a week to play on the dinosaur park play set. He flirted with all the women and blew them kisses. He has a way of driving women wild. Our meal was acceptable and no one spilled much of anything.

We bought a few other things and head for home at the late hour of 6:30 p.m. My garage is skinny and getting in and out takes a lot of traffic management in order to open doors and unload children from the back of a two-seater car. Addison is learning to get out of his car seat and walk over to me so I can lift him out. He stood at the door and played peek-a-boo with the nanny and Coco as they stood in single file down the slender slip of space between the car and the wall. I picked up Addison and pressed my back against the wall to shut the door. I looked down and saw Addison’s foot caught in the door.

Emergency management with children requires the ability to subdue panic and proceed with intelligence, speed, clarity, and calmness. Easy? No. I don’t know why I have this particular talent - it’s not really one I can put on my resume.

Hobbies and talents:

In case of office emergencies - ranging from paper cuts to falls on slippery ceramic to heart attacks - I can attend to the sick and the injured with a the expedience of a paramedic and just the right mix of a mom.

But this I can do. I’ve tended to dying dogs, sprained backs, raging fevers, and major surgeries. For some reason, I just don’t panic. I’m sure the trait comes from my mother. She grew up on a farm where life shows it’s cycles without sparing us our feelings. And she’s lived through a lot with that same matter-of-fact temporment. I knew, without looking, that Addison’s foot was caught in door. When the language caught up to my tongue I yelled:

His foot’s in the door!

Before I finished speaking, I had the door open. Our giddy moment was over as he screamed in pain.

Addison’s legs hang from his body when he’s held. He often goes without shoes. If he had had them on, I’d have never been able to shut the door on it. I carried Addison to a chair, and I held him as he cried that distinct cry of: Man this really hurts! A cry that is much different than: I’m tired. Or, I’m mad. The good thing about Addison’s softer muscle tissue is that his foot bent with the car door like a Cabbage Patch Doll’s would. I could tell the door hadn’t caught that big bone across the top of the foot. He’d be left with a bruise, but no bones were broken.

In just thirty minutes, Addison was laughing and playing with his sister. He downed some coconut water while listening to his favorite High Five song. As the nanny and I marveled at his recovery, he knew we were talking about his feet. He pointed them, in harmony as if to say: Yup. I’m just fine. And with that the darkness turned light again.

This morning, sirens wailed around our neighborhood. Either there was a very large accident, a fire, or….or a marathon. We raced out in front of our complex and along came an ambulance, a motorcycle officer, and a blue van. In between were the two last people in the race, running a bit, and then walking. There bodies were floppy and tired. We watched them walk/run off down the marathon’s route, sirens blaring right in their ears.

Since I’ve taken up running, I’ve though about entering one of those marathons. With kids under three and four years of age, I am not sure how “us” mothers do anything not related to children. I got the kids ready for a morning of gyms classes. I planned on sneaking out for an hour and run through la sabana park while my kids bounced around in their classes. About five minutes into the run, little sprinkles of rain dotted the asphalt path. After fifteen minutes, I thought it would hold off until I was finished. I looped around the big eucalyptus trees and wanted to take a picture. They line up in a row, bare and tall. They were just so there and did it so effortlessly. No, I thought. I want to keep the pace up. I’ll take a photo on the loop back.

The little drops got bigger. My hat kept my glasses dry, for awhile. Soon, it was a down pour. My mother always said: You’re not going to melt; it’s just a little rain. And in Costa Rica, it is one of the best policies I’ve brought down from the States. I’ve got rain coats and umbrellas - and trust me - there are times the rain is cold and I need it. But running from car to house or store, I don’t mind getting wet.

My shoes began to squish with each step and little bits of grass and mud flicked up on my legs. The hat wasn’t keeping my glasses dry any more. A few soccer players huddled under shelter, a few stuck it out. I passed other runners as we all were determined to finish what we started. It’s too hard to try to carve out another chunk of my day to exercise. I had ten minutes to go.

I circled back to those trees. I laughed because I should have taken that photo earlier. I hopped in place and pulled out the camera and got a shot. The camera got pretty wet, and the fanny pack was soaked. On the way back to the car, I ran with a velocity that surprised myself. At this rate, I could actually be one of those runners in the marathon. As I sat in the car and peeled off my wet shoes, and shirt, and hat, and cleaned my glasses. The window shield fogged up. I was a little damp, but I was still in one piece, and present. Maybe this is how those trees feel?

After defrosting the windows, I drove to pick up the kids. The rain began to stop. It didn’t matter: I hadn’t melted; it was just a little rain after all.

In a western Suburb of San Jose, another organic market has sprouted up. Every Wednesday from 8 a.m. until 11 a.m. (mas or menus - it is Latin America after all!) this gorgeous food market is open at the Cruz Rojo. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the place was busy. I hope it stays that way. I filled my orange cart up with a bounty. The celery was taller than my son. The woman running the market says she’s been working with farmers for 14 years. They didn’t believe her when she asked them to plant some of these odd things like bok choy and red cabbage.

Who’s going to eat that? they said.

Just trust me she told them. They’ll eat it. And there I was sticking a bunch into bag. I’ll be back. And if we tell a few friends, they’ll keep planting and we’ll all be the ones growing stronger in the end.

I was talking to a friend about the environment in Costa Rica. She said: Companies like Auto Mercado and others have to step into the 21st century and get a clue that they are part of the bigger picture. This coincided with an article I was reading in Vanity Fair about an architect and designer, William McDonough. He’s written about a concept he termed: Cradle to Cradle Design. Waste is food. No one gets squeamish when we think of cow manure being spread on plants to fertilize fields. What if we thought of the world as this abundant place that just recycles and regrows and re-digests everything it spits out?

“Minimizing toxic pollution and the waste of natural resources are not strategies for real change….Cradle to Cradle Design’s strategy of eco-effectiveness is rooted in the systems of the natural world, which are not efficient at all, but effective. Consider the cherry tree. Each spring it makes thousands of blossoms, which then fall in piles to the ground-not very efficient. But the fallen blossoms become food for other living things. The tree’s abundance of blossoms is both safe and useful, contributing to the health of a thriving, interdependent system. And the tree spreads multiple positive effects-making oxygen, transpiring water, creating habitat, and more. And it is beautiful!

Eco-effectiveness seeks to design industrial systems that emulate the healthy abundance of nature. The central design principle of eco-effectiveness is waste equals food.

When waste equals food, the “be less bad” imperatives of efficiency fade. When a product returns to industry at the end of its useful life and its materials are used to make equally valuable new products, the minerals or plastics of which it is made do not need to be minimized-because they will not become waste in a landfill. Industry saves billions of dollars annually by recovering valuable materials from used products. Similarly, products designed to be made of natural, safely biodegradable materials can be returned to the soil to feed ecosystems instead of depleting them.”

I think Costa Rica has this great opportunity to pass over some of the destructive ways of our more “developed” neighbors. We have a culture of people that at one time, used everything! Nothing went to waste. Unfortunately, I see these sad signs of the times when motor oil is dumped down the drain, insecticides are sprayed wherever and whenever someone wishes, and cars spit out disgusting fumes and “supposedly” pass inspections. Sometimes I wish I could scream - no! no! Costa Rica you had so many things right. I mean, WE DON”T HAVE AN ARMY!! Let’s be leaders - even as small as we are - for designing a culture that relishes and reuses everything we need.

When I went to the grocery store, mentioned above, I looked up and right in front of me where canvas bags - the kind that’s reusable. For a moment I was so happy! I bought one right away. The answer? No. A little step. You bettcha! Cotton involves an intense agricultural barrage of chemicals…yikes….sometimes change seems impossible. But I get excited about the fact that someone is thinking a little.

In Costa Rica, the grocery stores range from those that cater mostly to the Ticos, and there are those that stock their shelves with more imported goods for the ex-pats and the Costa Ricans looking for more goods such as blueberries or garlic stuffed olives or imported chocolate. Every Saturday, I get an organic food delivery to my home from NaturaStyle. The food is fabulous. It’s comes from happy cows eating grass; coconuts swinging in the breeze; vegetables harvested without pesticides. Coco was assigned a project based on a book photographed and written by Peter Menzel and writer Faith D’Aluisio: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.

As National Pubic Radio reported: “The husband-and-wife team wanted to see how globalization, migration and rising affluence are affecting the diets of communities around the globe. Each chapter of their book features a portrait of a family, photographed alongside a week’s worth of groceries. There’s also a detailed list of all the food and the total cost.”

Most of the food we get on Saturday is also in less packaging. The milk comes in a big milk can (the one Coco’s leaning on) like in the old days. I transfer it to glass I’ve recycled. The vegetables don’t come in plastic bags. The vendor crates them in boxes, sets them on my counter and takes the crates back for another use, and another and…It’s a lot of work. On Saturday, I can spend up to four hours cleaning, condensing, and getting all this stuff to fit into my refrigerator for the week. When I’m done, I set the containers to the side and the organic company picks them up next week.

Most of the time, I’d rather have someone else cook for me. When I face yet another load of food, I’d rather go out to eat. But it’s not just budget concerns that keep me thinking about what I eat and HOW it gets to my table. It’s this planet. It’s the planet - you know that thing we walk on - get air from, the water….that planet. I do have to go out and shop once a week to get those other things that doesn’t come on Saturday. But even there, as I’ll write about tomorrow, I can try to reuse, reduza & recycle.

Possibly a paradigm shift will save us from choking on all the plastic and toxic bits and parts we produce. Instead of a disposable society where we have to figure out how to burn, bury, or dump or old stuff, why not make it so it all rots and we eat, breath, and drink it all over again? That could be the ultimate paradise.

The next morning, three baby birds sat on my railing. Two pigeons and a brown one. The brown one flew away when I got my camera, but the two palomas remained for hours. I recognized our fledgling, but this other little one? Maybe it is his sister - the one “gone missing.” It was so fantastic to know that the night passed and the baby made it. Off to another day to stretch his wings. And he’s not alone. It’s always better to travel in pairs. I’ve got a feeling they’ll be back.

A crimp in my neck runs from under my skull, over my shoulders, and splinters off down the spine. I went to bed fine; woke up as I fought off a camel hogging the bed all night. Turning to the right is downright painful and the rest of life’s every day motions are annoying and stiff.

All the "little things" add up when caring for my son, especially the lifting. This is injury is an old one, and it returns when I put too many straws on my back.

This morning Addison’s nanny had a crimp in her neck. Same side. We look like a pair of melted salt and pepper shakers. We both have to turn our whole body in order to use it. Reaching down to pick up Addison makes us wince and huff out funny noises like: oooffff….aaahhhgggg…bluuuufff. Our house smells like menthol rub. We laugh at how ridiculous we look.

As we finished breakfast, I told the nanny how I once read once that everyone who’s ever sat in a chair or lived in a house or used the changing room at the department store leaves their energy behind. So, we decided that the guy who used to live in this house must have had neck problems. Either that or it’s in the water.

Addison was sitting on the floor and signaled he wanted to be picked up.

Maybe we can get a camel to haul him around. I’ve seen camels trained to get down on their knees. Addy could climb up and fit perfectly between those two humps. In the meantime, I huffed and puffed and grunted as I reached down for my son to take a little walk in the sun.